Driver's License? Wrong Side of Road.

Hello. It's Tuesday, which in Spanish is martes. Just for your general knowledge.

Tuesday also means TOPICS TUESDAY, this fantastic time where I get to express excitement about tacos (served in the Coe College cafeteria) and about Topics in Composition, our staff development course.

In our staff meeting last night, one of the groups from the Tybee Island topics group did a workshop for the entire center. (You can read more about our Tybee trip here). This workshop centered around conciseness -- making a million thoughts into a few words.

I'll admit, I've always had a bit of a hard time with brevity. I like my words and thoughts to flow together, and I often would rather risk over-explaining myself than being unclear. I learned through this workshop, as Dr. Bob said, that the first draft is for the writer and the final draft for the reader. The first draft is my time to make everything sound good and flow well; the final draft is what gets the point across in the most interesting, concise way possible.

The workshop leaders had us condense an embarrassing moment into six words. Mine? "Driver's License? Wrong Side of Road."

Yes, it was beyond embarrassing.

After the exercise, our staff discussed the advantages and disadvantages of brevity. An advantage of my own 6-word anecdote is its universality. Most adults know how nerve-wracking taking a driver's license test can be, and most will infer the details of my story while implicitly understanding why it is embarrassing. On the other hand, leaving out these details changes the essence of the story. The reader does not know that I never had an accident before or since or that the old man sitting next to me was being really mean. The reader can infer details, but that doesn't necessarily mean she will get the details right.

We agreed that it is important to strike a balance between conciseness and detail -- that's one of many reasons we revise.

If you want to let us know your own thoughts about brevity while practicing brevity, tweet at @CoeWC! We would love to hear from you.

-Angela